WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE UK BASED STAGE AND SCREEN ACTOR

A London Middlesex Acting graduate from the South East of England with further extensive training at The Met Film school in Ealing Studios and The William Palmer College. His work as an actor includes both stage and screen with writing and directing experience.

His training at The William Palmer college included the reading of classics from Greek Theatre such as Euripides and Sophocles, Shakespeare and moving on to Ibsen, Brecht and later to more contemporary playwrights such as Arthur Miller and David Mamet. Practitioners of particular interest during this period included Edward Gordon Craig and his approaches to theatre design.

During his 3 year Acting Degree at Middlesex, his personal focus shifted toward the study of movement with particular interest in Jacques Lecoq’s approaches to the physical aspects of acting. He later went on to focus on Stella Adlers approach to ‘The Method’ and the differences between stage and screen acting.

During his time at The Met Film School at the famous Ealing Studios, he focused again on screen acting and started to study the works of Anthony Hopkins, Denzel Washington, George C Scott, Russell Crowe and Michael Keaton.

The passion for Acting struck Damien at a young age (pretty much the moment he started speaking and annoying his parents) but it was when he saw Bruce Lee, or rather Jason Scott Lee playing Bruce Lee in ‘The Dragon’ at the age of 8, that his obsession with the art (both acting and Martial) started to take hold. Taking into account the fact that working class actors seldom make it in the industry, he ignored every flailing doubt in his mind, instead setting out to prove that statement wrong by creating characters that could entertain as well as move the audience, whether they loved the character or loathed him as long as they remembered him.

He can be seen as one of main leads in the 2014 BFI entry ‘99% Certain’ and in Director Mike Clarke’s upcoming works for 2016/17 including the short ‘Love’s Innocence Lost’ which is currently receiving high praise from Film Critics in North America as well as playing one of the three main protagnists in the imaginatively disturbing, psychological horror “Five Hells for A Thief’ (currently in development)

Trivia

* Born Damien Evan Ashley Pettit, he changed his stage name to Damien Ashley as he was worried that he’s real name would cause future issues with securing work.

Personal Quotes

I have studied both contemporary and classical forms of acting and find that, like Bruce Lee’s approach to Martial Arts, a culmination and then removal of the collected practices works best to free form my approach (not following one specific style, instead taking elements of all the styles I continue to learn from – having no style but also having one at the same time…if that makes any sense).